Security
by Caitirin
Summary: Doesn't everyone want a little security?


Quatre walked past Duo's room and not two steps after he had passed the open door, he did a double take. He stuck his head back in the door; you couldn't even see the floor. To say that Duo was messy was an understatement. Quatre rolled his eyes and walked into the room, he had to do some laundry anyway. He might as well grab some of Duo's. It would make the room less of a fire hazard as well.

As he was going through the piles and tossing clothing into a pile he managed to clear away some of the old coffee cups and candy bar wrappers as well. _Honestly,_ he shook his head, _How can he live like this!_

Some hours later Duo bounced in from his mission. It had gone superbly well and Duo was rather pleased with himself. He was really tired though and so after grabbing a quick bite to eat, and with Duo it was amazing how quickly he could inhale food, and an affectionate taunt aimed at Wufei, he bounded up the stairs to collapse.

"How can he bounce around like that?" Wufei grumbled, "I swear that boy isn't human! Just not human!" He stalked away as Quatre walked through the room with an armload full of laundry. He blinked confused at Wufei's retreat and just shrugged before continuing on his way.

Duo kicked off his shoes and tossed his hat towards his desk chair. It fell four feet to the side of it on the floor, neatly crowning a stack of manga, which he had read about a week ago. He stretched and prepared for a nice long nap when suddenly he noticed something missing. His eyes shot wide open and he pulled all the pillows away. It wasn't there. He looked around quickly. There was no mistaking it. It was definitely not where he had left it. He dove into the mess on the floor and began to search violently. Much chucking of things around the room shattered the peace and quiet of the upstairs.

Trowa looked up from his seat on the couch with a book. Duo sure was noisy; he had to be thrashing around up there. _What on earth is he doing up there? Remodeling?_ Trowa decided that he didn't want to know and slipped headphones on over his ears and went back to reading.

Wufei decided that he had taken enough of the noise and he went up the stairs grumbling to set him straight. It was injustice for him to be this loud. He made his way down the hallway, raising an eyebrow at the pile of stuff haphazardly strew in Duo's doorway and in the hall beyond it. He walked up the door intending to tell him to keep it down or else when he found himself leaping backwards for his life as a book sailed from the room right at him. It was a near miss and Wufei grimaced as he straightened.

"Baka! What on earth are you doing?" Wufei didn't have enough time to dodge the projectile Kaneda and motorcycle figurines as they flew out into the hallway. He caught them right in the face and fell over into a (luckily) soft pile of pillows strewn in the hallway. A worried face peered out after the words from the giant mess in the room.

"Wufei?" Duo looked puzzled, Wufei got up and frowned at him. Brandishing the motorcycle and action figure in his hand he glared at Duo.

"Yes its me! Now what _are_ you doing that you must make so much noise and fling this," he looked down at the action figure in his hand, "junk around in the hallways as if they were weapons!" Wufei massaged a newly formed bruise on his forehead.

Duo bit his lip a bit and frowned, "I'm looking for something." He said rather hesitantly. Wufei raised an eyebrow at the expression on Duo's face.

"Well what did you lose? Not that I'm surprise that you lost it what with the mess you live in." Wufei dropped Kaneda into a pile and stood with his arms folded as Duo sat on the ground looking uncomfortable.

"Its nothing." Duo said quickly. "Just something. It's gotta be around here somewhere. Sorry bout the noise, and umm the motorcycle. I hope your head is okay. I'll keep it down." Duo hopped up and ushered Wufei from the room. Then he hastily pushed all of the things he had tossed into the hallway back into his room and closed the door.

Wufei simply stood there for a while blinking. _Maxwell… had apologized? What was he hiding?_ Wufei frowned and wandered down the hallway shaking his head; it wasn't his problem. _What a strange boy!_

Inside his room Duo was practically biting his nails. _Where is it?_ He had torn his entire room apart twice and he was certain that it wasn't here. Could someone have thrown it out? He blanched and sank down on his bed putting his head in his hands. He chewed absently at the end of his braid. This was quite a problem. He berated himself; _I should have taken better care of it. This was bound to have happened._ He fretted and paced about his room, well at least as well as someone could be said to be pacing on a floor that was literally covered in tiny mounds of obstacles and five inch intervals.

Heero arrived back at the safe house a few hours later to be informed that Duo was behaving even more erratically than normal. He raised an eyebrow.

"And what do you want me to do?" He asked blandly.

"Well you seem to have more of an affect on him. Can't you get him to quit?" Wufei stood with his arms folded as Trowa diplomatically asked Heero for his help in preserving all their sanity.

Heero sighed. He knew they were right; he was one of the only people that could effectively silence Duo. "Fine, I'll go deal with him. You guys owe me, again." Heero rolled his eyes; if he were to ever cash in all the 'ones' they owed him he would probably own them all. He shook his head and headed upstairs towards the muted noise.

He didn't even bother knocking before he opened the door to Duo's room. Duo was standing on his bed pulling at his hair, covering his face with his hands verbally berating himself for being a colossal moron and various other stupid variants. Heero smirked; Duo hadn't heard him come in, so entrenched in calling himself a moron that he hadn't even heard the door open. Heero let him rant for a while before closing the door loudly. Duo snapped to attention, nearly falling off the bed as he did so.

"Heero? When did you get here?" His eyes had gotten amazingly round and confused and he flailed to regain his balance before flopping down on his bed.

"All right, spill it. What did you lose?" Heero had this look of patient annoyance as he gave Duo a patronizing look.

"Uh… nothing." Duo fibbed

"Not buying it. Maybe if you didn't live in such a pit. Then you wouldn't lose things. You're driving everyone else nuts so I have been appointed to placate you, quite the mission." Heero rolled his eyes. "We are going to clean this mess out entirely so that you can find whatever it is that you insist you didn't lose, which I know you did, and so that I can get some peace and quiet." Heero said in a tone that clearly bespoke no argument. He grabbed a trash-bag from the corner and began to drop things into it.

Duo bit his lip, he didn't want to argue with a determined Heero, but he also didn't want Heero to find it before he did. Maybe he could beat him to it. Duo began to frantically put things away.

About two hours, and four trash-bags later, with a minimal amount of squawking on Duo's part as Heero threw away his 'treasured' collection of used Styrofoam coffee cups and other such stuff, the room was nearly spotless. Duo sat on his desk, fidgeting nervously. He hadn't found it and he was now certain that it was definitely _not_ in his room. Someone had to have taken it. Duo wished he could sink through the floor; they were all going to find out. He just wanted to die. Heero was royally annoyed, this had taken more time than he had thought it would and its still wasn't done. He grumbled and grabbed the end of Duo's braid dragging him rather unceremoniously downstairs amidst much protest and resistance.

"Look you won't tell me what it is and I'm not going to get any peace till you find the damned thing. So we are going to ask the others." Heero dragged him down the stairs.

"No! It's fine! I'll just be quiet, I'm sure it'll turn up sooner or later!" Duo protested.

_What on earth is it that he doesn't want us to see? What the hell is he hiding. Damnit, this better not endanger our missions or else I am going to kill him. _ Heero seethed. He was tired now and wanted nothing more than to take a nap and just tune out.

Ten minutes later they were all assembled in the common room. Duo was sulking in a corner rather like a petulant child and Heero was standing in front of the other three.

"Alright, he lost something. Now he won't tell me what it is, but he isn't going to shut up until he finds it. Now did any of you borrow something? Or move something?" Heero's patience was wearing thin.

"I wouldn't dare go in there, I'd be worried that something would drag me in and kill me. There are things living in the piles of junk in there. I was attacked by a flying motorcycle just walking past." Wufei stated calmly and slightly sarcastically. Duo made a face at him.

"I've not been in there. I tend to agree with Wufei on this one." Trowa replied honestly. Heero turned to Quatre.

"Well I was walking by there earlier and I picked up some laundry since I need to fill a load." Quatre admitted. "Are you missing some article of clothing Duo?"

Duo's face turned a funny color and he inhaled sharply. He ran from the room heading towards the laundry room. He nearly dove into the dryer where a clean warm load of laundry waited. The others heard an exclamation and a black clad blur raced past them towards the stairs. Well it would have raced past them had its braid not been caught in the lightning fast grip of Heero Yuy. The black blur came jarringly into focus with a curse of ouch and a thud as it fell backwards and hit the floor. Duo was quickly trying to stuff something behind him.

"Heh thanks guys, its fine now. I'll just be going to take a nap, awful tired now." Duo tried to leave but Heero whose glare was demanding an explanation blocked him. Duo gulped and as he tried to think of something he failed to notice Wufei sneaking up on him and he spun around too late to avoid Wufei's snatching of the bundle in his arms. Duo made a flying leap at Wufei but managed to only catch the floor as he landed hard on it and cursed, whimpering.

Wufei unfolded the blue bundle. It was a rather worn blue blanket with kitties on it. He raised an eyebrow at it as he held it out to the others. They all looked confused and then looked down at Duo who was sitting on the floor, turning a remarkable shade of bright red. Quatre was concerned that Duo was ill.

"You've got a security blanket Duo?" Heero's eyebrow was raised to an unnatural level. This was certainly an interesting turn of events.

Duo mumbled something under his breath and stood up snatching at the blanket, which Wufei held just out of his reach. Duo was starting to get really flustered when Trowa finally took the blanket from Wufei and handed it back to an immensely relieved Duo who proceeded to try and fold it up or make it invisible somehow. His face was so bright red that it nearly glowed.

"Yeah, so what if I do!" He snapped. He glared at all of them, as if daring them to make comments.

Wufei snickered and Duo borrowed the patented Heero Yuy Death Glare.

"I don't know why you're laughing Wufei. You've got that Dragon plushie in your room. It's the same kind of thing." Wufei's eyes nearly fell out of his head and his face got red as Duo's. Wufei quickly stopped laughing and shut up.

Duo felt a little bit better. Heero looked to him, still wanting some kind of explanation. "I've had this blanket since I was little on L2, I don't know where I got it. But I know I've always had it, since before I ever came to Maxwell Church, I think, " he hesitated, "I think my parents gave it me." He looked down at his feet, still feeling embarrassed and rather reticent about this whole ordeal.

"Well good, now you've found it. Can we return to relative normalcy?" Heero asked. They all nodded. Duo almost ran from the room upstairs. He was really red in the face and he was still dead tired. He crawled into bed and snuggled his face into his old blankie. He was soon asleep.

Wufei still red in the face, went to better hide his plushie and refused to speak to anyone. Trowa went back to his reading and Quatre went to finish his laundry.

Heero headed upstairs after he was sure that no one was paying any attention. He walked quietly to his room to check on something. He went to his bed and pulled back a pillow, just to make sure. He gasped in surprise. It was gone! That was impossible! He spun around and began to ransack his room.

Trowa heard more banging from upstairs and sighed reaching for the headphones once again, he was never going to finish that book.

Meanwhile, a little stuffed puppy dog plushie, with many patches, slowly agitated in the washing machine.


End file.
